Nation : Government Jobs at All-Time High

WASHINGTON — More Americans are employed by government than at any previous time in the nation's history, a growth helped by a boom in jobs at prisons and jails, a Census Bureau report showed today.

"Corrections is the fastest-growing segment" of government employment across the country, said Meredith De Hart, a social science analyst at the Census Bureau.

Overall, employment of federal, state and local governments totaled a record 17.3 million people as of October, 1987. But while that represented an increase of 2.1% from 1986, employment in corrections jumped 9.5% to 425,000, the report said.